Not A Normal Couple
by kali82
Summary: Gary and Rachel ficlet, where they have to resort to acting like a normal couple to avoid a rogue Alpha's attention. un-beta'd drabble


Fandom: Alphas  
>Pairing: RachelGary  
>Words: 1,166<br>**Disclaimer: Alphas is the property of SyFy and various other folk. I'm just playing with the characters for my own amusement. **

**Not A Normal Couple**

"Rachel, he's on the move to your location, coming from the south. Can you get out of the way?"

Bill's voice cut through Gary's nattering, snapping Rachel out of her hyper-sight mode. She'd been trying to spot the rogue Alpha on the east/west boulevard, but apparently they had guessed his point of origin wrong.

"He's going to be on top of you in a minute or two. Do you have cover?" Bill sounded worried.

Gary was looking panicked, his fingers tapping rapidly. Rachel grabbed his hands to stop the distracting movements – the last thing they needed was Gary's twitchy behaviour drawing the Alpha's attention.

"You shouldn't touch me, Rachel," Gary protested. "You haven't washed your hands and now there are germs." The poor guy was practically squirming at the thought. Rachel snorted impatiently.

"Gary, this Alpha can create deadly electrical pulses with his _hands_ and you're worried about germs?" she asked as she tugged him into the shelter of a recessed store entrance. It wasn't really cover, as Bill would call it, but at least she could put her back to the street and shield Gary at the same time.

Gary had gone silent at her question, and Rachel was about to apologize for being so bitchy – Gary didn't properly understand real-world priorities on a good day, let alone under stress – when she realized that his fingers had stopped pulling against her grip. Instead, he was clasping her hands tightly and there was a wide-eyed look of fear on his face.

"We're in trouble, aren't we, Rachel? This is why Bill doesn't want us in the field. Because we 'can't take care of ourselves'."

Gary's imitation of Bill's serious voice made Rachel smile for a moment, until Bill's actual voice crackled in her ear.

"He's on your block. Have you found cover?"

Rachel let go of one of Gary's hands to tap her mic button.

"Not really. We're in a doorway, that's all we could do."

"Well, try to look natural. Normal, y'know."

"Normal? On a deserted street, at ten o'clock at night?" Rachel asked in disbelief. Gary's free hand had begun twitching, so she clasped it in hers again.

Nina's voice broke into the channel. "Plenty of normal couples spend time in doorways at this hour of night."

Rachel's jaw dropped. Nina didn't mean? She couldn't mean…

"We're not a couple." Gary announced, oblivious to the fact that his mic wasn't active. "That was last month. Last month I was Rachel's boyfriend. Pretend boyfriend."

"Rachel! Do something now," Bill ordered, shocking her into action.

Pulling Gary's hands up between their bodies, she released them to wrap one arm behind his back and cup her other hand against his jaw. He stopped talking in his surprise and Rachel took advantage of his momentarily closed mouth to cover his lips with hers.

It wasn't anything like a normal kiss. For one thing, Gary was wriggling like mad, so she pulled herself tighter against his body, keeping his hands trapped between them. His lips were dry, slightly chapped, and they twisted against hers as he tried to pull away. Rachel slid her hand from his jaw to smooth the hair on the back of his head.

"Just relax," she whispered against his lips. "He'll never pay attention to a couple necking in a doorway. Just play along."

She felt Gary go still and tense against her, and then he pulled his arms free. To her surprise, he wrapped them around her waist. His fingers tapped against her back for a moment, then started rubbing small circles on her jacket. His lips moved against hers and she realized that he wasn't trying to kiss her, he was whispering. With an effort, she pulled her focus from her touch-sense to listen to what Gary was saying.

"… kissed me. Rachel, did you know I've never kissed anyone before? Because of germs. And because no one ever kissed me. Did you know that kissing is found in almost all cultures of the world? That's what Nina meant when she said normal couples. Normal couples kiss in doorways. But we're not a normal couple, because we're not normal. We're special. That's what Doc…"

Rachel couldn't risk Gary saying Dr. Rosen's name, so she crushed her lips against Gary's to silence him. He froze for a moment and then returned the kiss with clumsy enthusiasm, germs clearly forgotten. Rachel tried to focus on her hearing-sense in the hopes of tracking the rogue Alpha's footsteps, but instead she found herself lost in the sound of Gary's fingers rubbing against her coat, of his breath rustling against her cheek. She tried switching to odours, but when she caught the scent of Gary's warm skin, she dampened that sensation, too.

For a moment, as his lips slid against hers and his hands moved across her back, she got lost in her sense of touch. She could feel herself becoming overwhelmed by the sensation until her concentration on the moment was broken by the sound of Gary's voice. He was clearly trying to talk while trying to kiss her at the same time. She felt both irritation and affection: only Gary would try to provide commentary to a kiss. But as she focused on listening to what he was saying, she realized that the intense sensations were receding to a manageable level.

"…nice, Rachel. I think I like kissing. Although we should have brushed out teeth first… Not that you taste bad, but germs, y'know… I have anti-bacterial mouthwash in the van. Next time, we should bring that with us… just in case we have to kiss again… Although we'd have to spit on the street, which is gross, because you shouldn't swallow mouthwash…"

Rachel tuned in and out of Gary's monologue. Every time he had a new thought, he'd pull back just far enough to whisper it, and then return to nipping at her lips with increasing confidence. One of his hands slipped up her back to play with her hair, which inspired a whole new set of observations. Rachel smiled against his mouth and returned his kiss with lazy enjoyment. Somehow the combination of his commentary, scent, taste, and rapid movements tangled up all of her senses just enough that she could split her focus and just enjoy herself.

"You know, you can stop now, guys," Nina's amused voice teased in her ear. "The guy's well past you. But carry on if you want to."

Rachel pulled her head back from Gary's, just enough to meet his eye. He smiled shyly at her, then looked away and started to step back. Rachel tugged gently at his hair to make him look at her again, and shook her head. Laughing inside at the confusion on his face, she leaned in to catch his lower lip between hers. The target had gone past them, the team was taking it from here, and so there was no reason not to carry on with the best kiss she'd ever had.


End file.
